The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

Local News

September 1, 2012

2 women hurt in separate gun incidents

By Courtney L. Saylor Herald Staff Writer

SHARON —

A woman protecting her baby was shot and another trying to fight an armed intruder was hurt in two incidents of gunfire in the last week in Sharon.

The gunmen are still at large and the crimes don’t appear to be related. Police are looking for help in identifying the gunmen.

Sharon police Chief Mike Menster said a 20-year-old Youngstown woman was shot in the back about 1 a.m. Thursday while she was in bed on the first floor at 606 S. Oakland Ave.

Menster said the window was propped open about five or six inches and the woman heard gunshots that sounded like they were getting closer so she ducked down to cover her 1-year-old daughter.

One shot hit the woman in the upper back, ricocheted off a rib and out the middle of her back, Menster said. The baby was not hurt.

Menster said the person who fired the shots may have put a hand through the window and that the shooting was not random.

He declined to comment on a possible motive for the shooting and said the woman was visiting relatives at the home.

Witnesses said they saw two men running west toward New Castle Avenue after the shooting.

One was described as a black man about 5 feet 10 inches tall wearing a black and white horizontally-striped shirt, khaki cargo shorts and a red baseball cap on backwards. The other was wearing a dark-colored hat, shirt and pants, police said.

The woman was taken to the emergency room at Sharon Regional Health System and then to St. Elizabeth Health Center, Youngstown, for treatment of the wound, which police said was not life-threatening, and a broken rib.

Four shots were fired, police said, and two slugs were recovered from the house. One was lodged in a door and the one that hit the woman was found in a wall, Menster said.

Police are also investigating a home invasion at 9:10 p.m. Monday in the 300 block of Mesabi Street.

Menster said four Sharon women in their 20s were in the living room of one of their homes when four men burst in the door with handguns and ordered them to the floor.

The 29-year-old woman who lives there tried to fight one of the men and he pistol-whipped her in the head, Menster said.

The other women complied and the men stole a purse with $47, a cell phone and personal items and about $300 cash and change from a coffee jar that was on the family room floor, police said.

They ran out of the home in an unknown direction, police said.

The woman who was hit with the gun was treated at the Sharon hospital for a 2-inch cut above her ear and the other women were not hurt, police said.

Menster said the women said the men were wearing masks and at least one of them was wearing batting-style gloves. At least three of them had a gun.

The one who pistol-whipped the woman was described as a short, stocky black man wearing a black hoodie and black mask.

The other men were described as follows: a skinny black man about 5 feet 7 inches tall with a medium complexion wearing a smoke-colored gray jacket with a stocking over his face; a black man wearing a red hoodie and holding a silver handgun; and a black man wearing blue and orange shorts.

Anyone with information about either incident is asked to call 911.

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